Shooting Through a Sky of Fallen Stars

"We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity."

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist

When a large piece of space-matter comes into contact with the Earth's atmosphere there is a streak of light that flashes in the night sky. The matter burns as it falls and from below we see a trail of dissolving, blazing, burning mass above us. As the mass disintegrates its remnants are spread through the sky in a dark and delicate descent. It's former life as a glorious flying rock has been forgotten as it has transformed into nothing more than dust. That flying piece of space-matter did not cease to exist, it simply changed form. It changed from a large piece of celestial brightness to invisible, falling dust. 

Today, on May 8th, I will be married. The most beautiful girl in the world, both inside and out, has agreed to be a permanent part of my eternal life. I met Katelyn Jones in Moab on June 8th, 2013. There weren't any immediate sparks and our conversation was very brief. It wasn't until I kept running into her between June and August that I finally got the guts to ask her on a date.

On our first date we spent a late August night talking and watching the Perseid Meteor Shower. This was a perfect beginning to what has become the story of Katelyn and McKinley Withers.

There were hundreds of meteors that August night. Any person could have seen some of them if they were out watching. No two people saw the same show. Katelyn and I saw some meteors together when we pointed our fingers into the night sky asking, "did you see that!?" But the burning collision with the Earth's atmosphere was so fast that one of us often missed it. By the time Katelyn or I had searched through the scattered stars at the tip of the other's finger the celestial matter had already dissolved.

When a star falls we see a burning mix of mortality and immortality, a twisting collision of the celestial and the gravity-bound. We are all fallen stars. We all have celestial, eternal, everlasting potential which has been dissolved into mortal weakness.

In the story of McKinley and Katelyn Withers there have been times where we have been exposed to each other in our most fallen, mortal, and imperfect states. I anticipate many more of these times in the future. This does not concern me. I've realized that it is in those very moments of greatest weakness that we have seen the brightest flares of celestial light. In those moments of vivid imperfection we have dug the deepest into our true eternal character to forgive, to love, to dream, and to look forward not backward. Our constant collision with mortality is inseparably connected to immortality.

We also call this celestial collision a shooting star. These two names tell two different stories. A falling star is weakness, the eternal falling into the mortal. Yet a shooting star is hope. The eternal shining through the mortal. A shooting star is a dream and a wish.

We are all kept alive by dreams and wishes. We are all shooting stars.  A Master Creator knows our potential and wishes that we will reach it. We are, in a sense, an eternal wish. This creator wishes for us to be happy. He wishes for us to become perfected through the mercy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He wishes this because He knew us when we were stars. He knew us before we collided with this Earth's atmosphere and turned into specs of dust that are constantly pulled towards the Earth. He knew us before we were gravity-bound and fallen.

He sees all of us fallen stars and waits for our collisions with his celestial sky. He wants to see us as shooting stars dancing through the infinity.

A shooting stars in His sky is a moment. Sometimes they come and go just as quickly as a meteor dissolves in the Earth's atmosphere. So fast that we might exclaim "did you see that?!" only to find it had already dissolved. It is so fast that we often forget what we've seen only a few minutes, days, or years later. Too many of us have forgotten these moments. A shootings star is a moment when we reach above our mortality. We get a glimpse of celestial light. It is when we, a gravity-bound and fallen star, feel like we can jump into the infinity and escape our mortal weakness. This is when we have collided with his sky. Then, our creator points his finger in the sky and says "did you see that?" and makes a wish.

In my relationship with Katelyn I have felt my creator is watching His sky of fallen stars. There have been moments when we have shot through his sky, reaching above our mortal weakness, and he has made a wish. There have been moments that I've seen a beautiful glimpse of Katelyn's eternal potential, and there have been moments that she has seen mine.

Today we have collided with the celestial sky. We have reached above this gravity-bound weakness. We have promised love, forgiveness, kindness, selflessness, and a willingness to always move forward.

Now, just as we were able to sit side by side talking and watching the meteor shower on our first date, we will be side by side forever. We will watch for all of the flashing, burning, bright collisions with immortality that are to come. We will do our best not to miss these opportunities to see celestial brightness in ourselves, our lives, and in others. One of us will point and say "did you see that?!" and we will search through the sky of fallen stars under the other's finger and see a shining glimpse of eternity.

Today Katelyn and McKinley are shooting through a sky of fallen stars. We are more than just dust and weakness; we are stardust, dancing and swirling in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is, in fact, eternal, and this moment, May 8th, 2014, is but a little parenthesis in eternity.